Here's a very old angel ornament that I brought home from my mothers. It is made of pipe cleaners, a felted head, and what looks to be panty hose material and wire. It looks as if it's all hand made. I'm sure my mother bought it at a craft bazzaar in the 70's. Does anyone know how to make them? We also had waxed star ornaments, oragami that my dad made in Sunday School as a kid, my aunt has told me about how them made them. They had sparkles on them as well. 

Nap time is over. 

Angel plotting her next move, the dogs have been wild tonight. While Barley slept on John's shoulder. 

Do you have to do that??? 

Family time, everyone is read a story before bed. 

Here's a little ear lick for you! 

Hurry up and turn that page would you! 

Silky and Angel. There's no since in recovering the sofa so long as those two think it's their bed! 

My first stippling from 1995, back in my drawing 101 days. 

Prairie Fibers

The new webstore is up and running finally, sans 3000+ images and a whole lot of design issues. The new Miva Merchant 5.0 shopping cart is very different than the one we had previously. Aside from being on a shared system, the 4.12 had some real issues. The things I dislike about the MM5 is the fact that I don't know how to fix all of the current design issues, they are hidden in what I like to refer to as the dark side of the administration page, and I'm a little apprehensive about messing around with the scripting.

I have a IT team now, they are helping me with some of the nuts and bolts of the store, like putting in extra search boxes to make life easier for my customers. More later, IM is calling me.

Flocking, everything was flocked when I got up this morning. I took this a little later so it had melted off a bit already.  

Newsletter Debate

The previous post, which is copied from the Superior Threads Newsletter, has caused quite a stir on the Quilt Art group. Seems some folks view Bobs opinion as being both intolerant and unnecessary. Other listees pointed out that it was Bob's newsletter and company so he could do as he wished.

My comment was the ACLU inforces seperation of church and state, not merchant and state.

My solution was to offer a challenge, called Tolerance or Not. I truly dislike the word "tolerance". To tolerate is to merely put up with someone or something to get what you want, which may just be peace an quite, it doesn't have to be a material end.

Melancholic? Me... Yeah Right

You Have a Melancholic Temperament

Introspective and reflective, you think about everything and anything.You are a soft-hearted daydreamer. You long for your ideal life.You love silence and solitude. Everyday life is usually too chaotic for you. Given enough time alone, it's easy for you to find inner peace.You tend to be spiritual, having found your own meaning of life.Wise and patient, you can help people through difficult times. At your worst, you brood and sulk. Your negative thoughts can trap you.You are reserved and withdrawn. This makes it hard to connect to others.You tend to over think small things, making decisions difficult.

What Temperment Are You?

Raw Copper

Most of the pieces that I scanned here are about 1 to 1.5 inches all the way around, for their irregularness. One piece is about 1 x 1.5 x 1/4 thick, I am wondering if I can drill a hole in it, however if did so and stitched it to my quilt piece it WILL change the color of the fabric. Copper is a mordant/modifier and definately causes natural dyes to experience color shifts. This could be cool, or it could have horrendous effects for which there is no cure.

Raw copper? Doesn't really matter I guess, I just like them a lot. 

Angel, my little girlie dog. And to think I had the camera set on the red eye out setting and she still has red eyes. 

In Progress Two, getting there, lots more hand stitching to do though. 

A very sleepy boy enjoying the hot sun! 

Snow

It's snowing again, not nearly as much as it is north of here however. I was at a Spin-In today when I left the flakes were so dense you could hardly see, that was about 13 miles north of here. By the time I got home it was raining instead, I'd rather have snow.

I'm not ready for tomorrow to be Monday again, I'm too tired to care if it's Monday or not.

Have a Blurry Christmas! 

Stripes and Plaids do go together! Old Man of the Woods, aka Barley, taking a mid winters nap. 

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's 4 below zero out right now, I'm not sure how that comes up in celcius, but it means it's cold!
The upside to this cold weather means I can defrost my freezers, put the stuff outside, in the frigid cold, in laundry baskets and not have to worry about it thawing. And I have freezers that need to be thawed.

I decided to splurg I turned the heat up in the house to about 65 ! Normally I don't like it so warm in here but when that mercury dipped below -6F last night I decided it was too cold, John was happy with the decision. I tend to be a lot warmer than he is.

I really need to get caught up on laundry, our winter clothes, which I still haven't drug out of storage, needs to be washed, and the summer/fall clothes put back away. I need to thin out our clothing selections as well, we both have a lot of stuff we are not wearing anymore. I will do that right after I get my orders filled and out the door.

If your cold and are looking for a really warm shirt I suggest the Alaska Shirt by Woolrich. It's a thick heavy dense wool shirt worthy of crawling up into and just melting away. Since we went to the local outdoor supply store and they supply warm clothing for the skinny aneorexic types I'm suggesting the Alaska shirt for those who are more svelt in stature. I don't need to look cute or sexy, just like I'm planning on keeping all of my appendages!

Happiness is sleeping in a sunbeam, the sun is setting now, and NOT having to have your picture taken! 

Ok I'll go back to sleep now. 

Almost asleep 

Pepper, and he doesn't appreciate having his picture taken either! 

Diversions

Occassionaly a person needs a diversion. Today's diversion is Pepper, who is sleeping on my scanner snoring up a storm! I've been working almost non stop on the new webstore, it's about ready to go live any hour here now, which is exciting. Meanwhile I'm whipping up some major changes that'll make my customers lives much easier when it comes to shopping at Prairie Fibers. Now to get those employees hired, I need office help like you would not believe.

Time to fill the Finch Feeder again. 

Here's Trouble he's eating snow, must be thirsty! No je 

Snow and Porcupines

It's a glorious day out so I'm going to go take some pics with my digital.

I finally removed my porcupine quills from the osage orange dye bath. They turned out a wonderful lemon joy yellow color. It's still not the deep gold I've been wanting, I think I'll have to try some other plants, but it's still a nice yellow. I think I may take some of these yellow quills and overdye them with cochineal for a nice orange.

My Elk hide, I cut into it for the first time last night.  

Studio Dust

Dust everywhere, especially on places that are not easy to dust, like my thread racks. So now I really need to come up with a way to put these thread racks behind doors so they don't get nasty. I have jammer boxes for a lot of my thread, but I have to admit it works better for me when I can just look at the threads on the wall, and they are organized by colorways.

Threads 2. Please Please Please Dust Me! 

Threads 1. Dust me please! 

The Weather Report

I was listening to NPR this morning and WOW. It would appear that the weather got really wild and wicked this past in Nebraska and South Dakota. There are thousands w/o power right now due to the power lines being broken off, estimates are that power won't be back on, in many places, until the end of December. Right now it's something like 6 below zero, which can be typical for this time of year. I really hope that these people have alternative sources of heat, if not then hopefully they have shelters to go to.

A book I plan to pick up and read is called The Childrens Blizzard, it's an account of a blizzard that happened in the 1850's that killed over 500 children in one afternoon because they were caught (walking home after school with no coats or shoes) in a temperature variant in January.